Like Ancient Times

 One of the blogs i follow shared an interesting article.
  Within my lifetime, i've seen various religions elevate previously minor holidays to compete with Christmas, and even an entirely new cultural holiday during the same time of year.
  Please understand me carefully:  i do not object to this completely.  In many respects, the American Christmas is a cultural celebration, not a celebration of Christ.  i had this brought home to me in watching the first-season Andy Griffiths episode, Christmas Story.  Throughout the series, the people of Mayberry will unabashedly sing hymns and carols, but it seems to be just what's done, with no sign of actual love of God.
  It is appropriate that other cultures fit in too.
  Anyway, back to this article.
  Theophilus on Dover Beach shared from a Touchstone Magazine article.  It seems that, while yes, the Romans did indeed invent their solstice holiday as a response to what the Christians held significant, this didn't work as we've been thinking.
  The earliest Christians had attempted to calculate the date of Christ's birth.  As people will, they got it wrong.  They did not make a holiday or holyday of the date, but it was still significant to them.
  And at this point the emperor stepped in and invented the holiday celebrating pagan gods.  Not just any pagan gods - the ones of Rome.  He also wanted to bring people away from other religions, not only Christianity, but also the popular Mithras cult from Persia, supposedly elevating the solstice also.  This was in the mid to late 200s AD.

http://masstraveljournal.com/places/boston-cambridge/when-christmas-was-banned-boston
http://theweek.com/article/index/222676/when-americans-banned-christmas
http://www.timetravel-britain.com/articles/christmas/ban.shtml
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/1544080/posts
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sol_Invictus

What is Hard for God?

God made the two great lights, the greater light to govern the day, and the lesser light to govern the night; He made the stars also.          Oh yeah, let's have those too; like an afterthought


The Lord has bared His holy arm In the sight of all the nations, That all the ends of the earth may see The salvation of our God.           Like taking off the suitjacket before doing heavy work                  

The Basics About the Bible: The Letters Paul Didn't Write

Or maybe he did write one of them.......

The Basics About the Bible: Paul's Letters to Churches

A Letter of NT times followed this Basic Formula:

• Greeting, including self-identification - this is like "Signature First," or the Return Address
• Body of the Letter Paul's letters are generally broken down further:
• xxxxxxxspiritual teaching
• xxxxxxxpractical application
• Closing; here is where the secretary and any others sending greetings would identify themselves

The Basics About the Bible: The History Books of the New Testament

The New Testament opens with five books which, taken together, outline most of the events of its timeframe.

They are divided into the Gospels (Biographies of Jesus) and The Book of Acts, showing the birth and growth of the early church.

The Basics About the Bible: Between the Testaments

Between the Testaments

  While is our Protestant Bibles contain no Scripture between the testaments , a lot happened in history.  Alexander the Great made his conquests, his empire crumbled and was divided (prophesied by Daniel), and the world took the shape we find at the beginning of the NT.

  When the OT ended, the people had returned from exile.  Since the nation is, by God's design, on an international superhighway, armies came through and conquered them again.

  Alexander absorbed them peacefully after being shown the prophecy about himself.  He liked being prophesied about.

  After Alexander's death, his four generals divided his kingdom. Antiochus Epiphanes, a successor to one of those 4 generals, sacrificed a pig in the temple, and mounted such a great persecution of Jews that the Maccabee family revolted.
   The miracle of Hanukkah occurred.  The priests were reconsecrating, or dedicating, the temple,
but, according to the laws in the books of Moses, they needed to burn the sacred oil for 8 days and only had enough for 1.   But that one day's worth lasted for the entire 8.  It's also called the Feast of
Dedication, which older translations of the NT will mark as of one of Jesus' public speaking occasions.

  For a time, there was actually an independent Jewish state again.  

  This was the time the Pharisees and the Sadducees came into being.  The Pharisees wanted to make sure everyone kept the Law, since the penalties were so awful for not.  The Sadduccees were the conservative ones.  They accepted only the first five books of our Bible as authoritative.
  The Herod family curried favor with Rome, and came to power.  

  To keep their nation, priests allowed the Romans to change the High Priest annually, instead of keeping office for life.

The Basics About the Bible: Old Testament Books of Prophecy

There are two divisions of the writing prophets of the Old Testament:

The Basics About the Bible: The Poetry Books

There are six books of poetry in the Old Testament, but one is classified in another section.

Camel Caricatures and God's Call

What Personalities!

  On my main blog, Wonder-full, i used camel caricatures to tell my Saturday Sisters series of Sarah & Abraham.
  Actually i'm kinda uncomfortable with this.  Are you?
  Yet this seems to be something that needs to be done.

The Basics About the Bible: Old Testament History Books

There is a wide variety of scholarly opinion on dating the earlier books, but, as we come closer to the present, the events can be finely dated.  Some modern translations will even translate postexilic dates into our current calendar month and year.

The Basics About the Bible: The First Five

Valerie's Non-Scholarly Briefing The Bible in Minutes Course:

Old Testament: Books of Law

  These are known as the Pentateuch, Torah, and Books of Moses as well.*

The Basics of the Basics About the Bible

Valerie's Non-Scholarly Briefing The Bible in Minutes Course: 

A Word about the Basics

from II Peter 1

The Bible Contains: 

The thing about Judges 2

is that everything had changed.  The Red Sea had been crossed.  The time of miracles & manna was over; they'd crossed the Jordan and were in the Promised Land.
  But where were the rivers flowing with milk & honey?  They looked like pretty ordinary rivers.  And what about these neighbors they were supposed to kill, not intermarry with?  They seemed like decent people. Some, in fact, did better at living up to the principles we know than those who taught them.
  And then there's those fun customs.
  But those customs were not for them. They were forbidden by the rules, given to bless them.
  It's the same for us.

  i found this in some old papers.   Been there; trying to get away, live better.  Anyone else see themself?

Steps to a Seared Conscience

notes from

Charles Stanley, 12/1/00

• deliberate - a choice
• degrees - little by little, ignoring prompting
• defensive
• defiant
• dead - unfazed
• destructive - a seared conscience destroys the individual
• dangerous - to others

To sharpen the Conscience:

• fill the mind with the Word of God
  • NOT just reading it - stay in the Word
  • it's impossible to be obedient to God with a closed Bible
• instantaneous obedience to conscience, as to an alarm
• ask God's will
  • no need to ask "if it be Thy will" - IT IS
  • "Show me the truth about myself"
• confess (a start, but not enough)
• REPENTANCE - emotional, physical separation from sin (not consequences only)
• make amends